The Greatest Monster
by collosus66
Summary: DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own naruto or any of the concepts and characters.**

**Inspiration from Awesomeness Incarnate **

**The Greatest Monster**

Orochimaru frowned in annoyance. being forced to abandon all of his experiments and equipment was not something he liked. Had Orochimaru not been setting up a lab in one of the minor villages outside of Konoha for years, he would have been seriously set back in his research after this unforeseen event.

He was particularly annoyed because the timing of Sarutobi's raid meant that he had had to abandon every one of the sixty children he had commandeered, just when the vitals of that one little boy had seemed to be on the point of stabilizing. Now he might never know if his trying to reproduce to Mokuton bloodline had come to anything.

That was frame of mind and state of thinking Orochimaru had reached by the time he was approached by Akatsuki. He was ready to listen to this group and its advances and propositions. Though it was difficult for him to sort out their, the one thing he understood about their offer was something he had actively sought after for a good part of his life. Power. And at what cost?

No cost, the representative of this group assured him. The only thing that would be asked of him would be that he fight alongside the other members of this group and, naturally, swear allegiance to their leader.

. To his pleasure, Orochimaru found that his superior mind had it all neatly worked out. There was not a doubt in his mind. Power for the sake of a few flimsy promises? Was there even anything that needed consideration?

And thus Orochimaru found his way into the ranks of the Akatsuki. And what he saw there changed his life.

Orochimaru had tried and tested every method he had heard of to extend his lifespan, for despite everything he had done to himself, Orochimaru could never escape the looming fate of the mortal man: Death.

Until he made an amazing discovery.

If one lives life without incident, without the corruption of cancers and diseases, if one does nothing to force an early death upon oneself, what is it that ultimately kills one? The answer, of course, is simple obsolescence. The body runs out of inertia. Organs fail, whole sectors of the brain shut down and the body begins to decompose.

Now, these were not original observations for Orochimaru to make, but such was his loathing for his own ties to mortality that he became desperate to hit on the solution that would solve his problems and prevent his body from decaying and coming undone, betraying him, in fact. And finally, after years of fruitless searching, the fateful question occurred to the Snake sannin. _It is, perhaps, inevitable that my own body will eventually fail. But who on earth is to stop me from turning to the bodies of others when my own is no longer up to the task?_ And the answer to Orochimaru's longest-standing dilemma was at last within sight.

True, the technique took time to perfect, but once it was finished, it was truly an elegant jutsu. Orochimaru had only to look around him, select a suitable host, and take over, molding the features to resemble his own (a moment of vanity). Through trial and error, Orochimaru discovered two very important features of his new favorite jutsu. The first was that whatever host he selected, he was stuck with them for a minimum of three years. The second, and possibly more important discovery, was the fact that, when he took possession of a new 'skin', as he liked to think of his hosts, their natural bloodlines and abilities came into his possession for the duration of his stay inside of their bodies.

Naturally, the first step from the latter discovery was to ensure that all of the hosts Orochimaru had lined up for future occupation had some bloodline or power to recommend them as to make Orochimaru's stay in their skin more valuable and more worthwhile. However, as it often is with all who crave power, simply occupying those with one existing bloodline or another became trite and less spectacular a prospect with time. So, just as naturally as the first phase, the second phase of thinking cropped up.

If one can create one jutsu, one can create many, right? So if one can have one power, one may as well have more than one. The long and short of it: if Orochimaru was going to stick to inhabiting those who already possessed a bloodline when he found them, his choices were rather limited. However, if Orochimaru were to combine bloodlines, were to _create_ rather than _find_ a host, why, the possibilities were nigh-limitless. He could build an incredible body.

The Perfect body.

When Orochimaru was formally inducted into the organization of Akatsuki, he was immediately paired up with Sasori, the man who had been sent to recruit him. Initially, Orochimaru assumed that he had only been placed with a partner because he was new to the organization but he soon discovered, when he finally met the other members in person shortly after his initiation, that is was customary for all of the members of Akatsuki to travel in groups of two, unless of course their mysterious leader, a man known only as 'Pein', instructed them to go after a more difficult target, in which case multiple groups were dispatched.

However, unusual customs aside, Akatsuki was all Orochimaru could have hoped for in an organization. Not because of its immediate goals, which seemed to consist mostly of going after high-bounty missing-nin, particularly in Ame, where the Akatsuki headquarters were located, though occasionally certain groups would be forced to journey farther afield in pursuit of their quarry. Not even the long-term goals of the group interested Orochimaru, as he was never specifically told what those might be. All he knew of those matters consisted of what he had gathered from whispers and question and snatches of conversations. From these things, he was able to surmise that Akatsuki's leader's, Pein's, plans included the Jinchuriki and the nine bijuu in some way.

But none of these things made Orochimaru notably excited. No, the element of Akatsuki that really piqued his interest was the members themselves. Once Orochimaru was able to have a good look at each of them in person, he wondered at his good fortune at being invited into this group.

For one thing, there was his own partner, Sasori of the Red Sand, the legendary puppet master from Suna. Orochimaru had not initially recognized him when he had come to ask Orochimaru to join, but once the Snake sannin properly understood just who his partner was, he was truly impressed. Sasori's reputation preceded him, though it was some time before Orochimaru saw any more of him than just the puppet he travelled in.

Another member who made an impression on Orochimaru was the yet-partner-less Kiri missing-nin Kisame Hoshigaki, the Monster of the Mist, also known as the Tailed Beast Without a Tail. Kisame had become one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist when he had killed first his teammates to prevent them from leaking information under torture and then his sensei when he realized the man was corrupt. He had taken from his dead master the sword he still wielded, a sentient, scaled weapon that acted as a leech, drawing chakra from all those it touched, save for Kisame, to whom Samehada could give chakra to heal him.

Orochimaru had been aimlessly exploring the corridors of the Akatsuki headquarters when he happened to encounter Kakuzu, formerly of Takigakure. The Snake sannin's heart beat faster, though Orochimaru knew it to be out of excitement rather than fear. From what Orochimaru had heard of the man with the strange eyes, Kakuzu not only had in his possession the hearts of the village leaders who had imprisoned him, but a pseudo-immortality technique to accompany them. Apparently, the man had managed to incorporate those hearts into his own body, allowing him to send them into battle in the guises of great beasts of thread and chakra. Orochimaru knew that Kakuzu could never be killed so long as even a single heart remained to him. This was an ability worth investigating.

Yet another member with an ability so tantalizing that it practically made the Snake sannin start salivating when he first saw it in action was that of Hidan, Kakuzu's partner. While Kakuzu's abilities only seemed to grant him extended life, it seemed as though Hidan's powers wrought true immortality. It was said that it was Hidan's patron god, Jashin, who apparently demanded numerous bloody sacrifices every time Hidan fought, was the source of Hidan's immortality. True, it did seem slightly inconvenient that any part of Hidan that happened to be cut off during a struggle would have to be manually reattached, but to Orochimaru's mind, the prospect of not dying when, say, ones head was removed more than made up for that.

There was a member of Akatsuki that Orochimaru rarely saw, and that was the organization's spy, Zetsu. Possessing a split personality, and an accordingly split appearance, Zetsu's loyalties often seemed slightly random and unfixed. These were, perhaps, the reasons that Zetsu never had a partner. The reason he made such a good spy, Sasori informed Orochimaru, was that he had the ability to merge with surfaces, mainly the ground, and instantly reemerge from any other surface at all, allowing for fast travel and quick communication.

For some time, Orochimaru had been wondering how, in an organization mainly composed of missing-nin, Akatsuki managed to collect the bounties for the other missing-nin they tracked down and killed on a daily basis. The answer came to him in the form of Konan, 'God's Paper Angel of Ame.' Konan had the ability to infuse sheets of paper with her chakra to manipulate them as weapons, or even go so far as to transform her entire body into sheets of paper. These abilities, while interesting enough, especially from the standpoint of a scientist, paled in comparison to those of Konan's partner, Pein.

The moment Orochimaru laid eyes on Pein, he could barely contain his greed. The Rinnegan! A practically unstoppable doujutsu, one to rival even the Sharingan. But, as Orochimaru quickly learned, the Pein that he had thought of as the leader of Akatsuki was nothing more than a fragment of the true Pein, who was, in fact, a man named Nagato, the leader of Ame. Nagato used the six bodies of Pein in much the same way Sasori used his puppets, directing them through the metal piercings that were infused with Nagato's chakra. However, each of the bodies of Pein, unmistakable with their orange hair and numerous facial piercings, was more attractive to Orochimaru than any number of puppets, as each possessed the Rinnegan.

The moment Orochimaru realized that, for the first time, he was in close contact on a daily basis with so many individuals with such immense natural power, it became clear to him what he would do. The first body he would test his immortality jutsu on would be one constructed of the DNA of all of Orochimaru's fellow members of Akatsuki. With that decided, all that remained was to gather the DNA.

Logically enough, Orochimaru decide to begin his enterprise of gathering DNA with Hidan. Hidan left pints of blood spattered on the ground almost every time he engaged in battle. It was no trouble at all for Orochimaru to salvage some, secretly tucking away the vials in his cloak.

Kakuzu presented a bit more of a challenge, as the man had no blood to spill and kept his hair tied up and covered at all times. It was only the merest luck that Orochimaru managed to procure some of Kakuzu's DNA. He and Sasori had been joined by Hidan and Kakuzu on tracking down a pair of missing-nin from Suna, the Gamamoto brothers. Sasori hung back from this fight, as the Gamamoto brothers were close-range fighters who wielded oversize, serrated kunai. Kakuzu had weakened them, calling out only two of his thread beasts before drawing back and allowing Orochimaru to kill the first brother. Orochimaru suspected Kakuzu had been ordered to do so, as he had not seemed whole-hearted in his insistence that the Snake sannin finish off the shinobi. Of course, orders or no, Hidan demanded that he the one to kill the other brother, which he did, with much messy, drawn-out suffering.

Kakuzu and Sasori, possibly regretting letting Orochimaru claim one of the kills, told the Snake sannin to seal up the bodies in a scroll so they could be brought back to Ame for the reward. This Orochimaru obligingly did. However, while he was bent over, sealing the body of the brother he himself had killed, he noticed several thick, dark, coarse threads caught in the jagged ridges of the man's weapon. Quickly and carefully, Orochimaru worked the threads free, folding them up in a square of cloth and hiding them in his cloak before sealing up the corpse and hastening after his teammates, a small smile playing around his thin mouth.

Orochimaru had at first thought it would be easy to gather genetic material from Pein, just run his fingers through Animal Path's hair and he'd have his sample. But it soon occurred to Orochimaru that the paths of Pein could not have originally possessed the Rinnegan before Nagato took control of them; therefore, DNA from any of them might not be of any use at all to his plan to obtain the Rinnegan. Orochimaru thought again. It came to him that Nagato had to control his paths of Pein somehow, and that perhaps that was the way to gather the genetic material he needed. Suddenly, Orochimaru remembered the piercings, the tiny spikes and bars composed of dark metal. Metal infused with Nagato's chakra. The same type of metal that all of the Paths of Pein could form literally with the flick of a wrist.

Once he had come to this realization, it was no trouble at all for the Snake sannin to pay a little visit to the private training grounds behind the Akatsuki headquarters building just as Deva Path was leaving, its own training done for the day. Orochimaru was delighted to find that Deva Path had been practicing its aim, hurling short lengths of the chakra-infused metal he produced at the straw dummies and various targets. Pretending he was just cleaning up a little before he did some practicing himself, Orochimaru went around, pulling short lengths of metal out of the targets. He put the resulting pile of thick metal rods by the door that led back inside the compound, but not before he snagged a few pieces, pulling them inside his sleeve and slipping them in a pocket sew into to the inside of his robe. Being paranoid by nature, Orochimaru then spent the next few hours outside training, just in case anyone was watching him.

Though Kisame was a formidable fighter, there was not much in the way of special bloodlines or powers that he had to offer Orochimaru. No, what the Snake sannin really wanted from the Hoshigaki was some genetic material from the large, leech-like sword, Samehada. And, in a way he could not have foreseen, just such an opportunity presented itself to Orochimaru, practically screaming to be exploited.

It started when Orochimaru asked Kisame to spar with him with the vague idea that fighting the shark-man would give him a better idea of how to acquire some DNA from Samehada.

Kisame pulled a face. "Can I put off that spar, actually? I'll make it up to you later."

Kisame immediately had Orochimaru's attention at that, though the Snake sannin thought he disguised it well. "Why?" he asked, feigning disappointment.

"You picked the one day to ask that Samehada is shedding," Kisame said. Orochimaru noticed that Kisame did not have the sword with him.

"Shedding? I didn't know he sheds," Orochimaru said, shaming disinterest as hard as he could.

"Yeah, it doesn't happen often, only once every couple of years."

"What happens?"

"Well, a new coat of scales grows, forcing the old scales to drop off. The old scales won't absorb chakra once they fall off, but they're still full of chakra, so once all of them have fallen off and the new coat has settled, Samehada eats the old scales."

"How long does the whole process take?"

"A good twelve hours, not including the twenty minutes of so it takes him to eat the old scales," Kisame said ruefully.

"In that case," Orochimaru sighed discontentedly, "I'll let you off sparring, for now."

"Don't worry, I'll make it up to you once Samehada's ready," Kisame promised.

Orochimaru nodded and walked away. Once he was out of sight, he headed straight to Kisame's room to gather a couple of scales, almost unable to suppress his laughter. That had been amazingly easy!

When Orochimaru had first been shown the outdoor training grounds behind the Akatsuki headquarters, he had immediately noticed and commented on the tiny strip of garden down the left side of the headquarters building. He was quickly informed that Zetsu, who found it easier to merge with the ground if there were plants growing in it, tended to the flowers and grass there. Orochimaru carefully made a note of this, knowing that if he was going to get some DNA off of Zetsu, it would probably be while he was reemerging from the ground.

After nearly a month of bidding his time and keeping an eye out, Orochimaru thought that he might finally have hit on a way to get some of Zetsu's DNA and get away with it. It was when he spotted Konan arranging some long-stemmed yellow flowers in a vase, flowers Orochimaru knew he had recently spotted in Zetsu's little garden. When he questioned her, she gave a strange look before answering.

"Yes, they're from Zetsu's garden. He'll object as usual, but he'll deal with it." With a flourish that Orochimaru suspected was for his benefit, Konan produced several paper flowers from nowhere and slid them into the vase, mixing them in with the real ones. Orochimaru watched her, his mind whirring with thoughts of how to get his hands on even a few strands of Zetsu's DNA. It would be more than two weeks before he could implement his plan to achieve that end.

Orochimaru left the building, intending to do a bit of target practice. However, no sooner than he set foot outside the building he caught sight of something green in the corner of his eye. He immediately adjusted his path, heading for Zetsu's garden and pulling a small pair of sample snips out of an inner pocket. He knelt down, pretending not to see the enormous, flytrap-like growth or the accusing pair of mismatched eyes staring at him from the height of the nearest flowers. Orochimaru began clip flowers, slowly moving down the bed until he was directly in front of Zetsu's head, which was the only part of the man that was poking out of the ground. Orochimaru clipped off a few strands of Zetsu's hair before he was forced to pull back his hands or risk losing them as Zetsu closed his flytrap with a loud snap.

Orochimaru hastily stowed the snips away and stood, backing up a step. Zetsu's flytrap opened up again and the mismatched man glared at Orochimaru.  
>"What do you <strong>think you're doing<strong>?"

Orochimaru sighed theatrically, doing his best to put a bit of whine into his words. "Konan's making me do her dirty work just because she still thinks of me as the new guy. She asked me to come out here and cut her some flowers." Orochimaru sulkily held out the bunch of assorted flowers in his left hand.

Zetsu stared at the flowers as though they were the murdered corpses of his closest family and friends. "**Just don't do it again. **It's not funny."

Orochimaru nodded quickly. Zetsu glared at him one more time before sinking back into the ground completely. Orochimaru uncurled the hand wrapped around the stems of the flowers he had cut and delicately began picking greenish hairs out from between the stems.

When he had collected all of the strands of hair and carefully tucked them away he went back inside. He placed the flowers in one of Konan's vases just in case Zetsu thought to check up on his alibi. He stared at the slightly wilted flowers in discontent. Something was missing. _Konan mixes paper flowers in with the real ones,_ Orochimaru realized. _If I'm going to do this, I have to do it right or the others will suspect. _Orochimaru hunted up the vase Konan had filled two weeks ago. It contained the browned and shriveled husks of those old flowers and, as if in mockery of the dead blooms, several full, perfect paper flowers. Orochimaru got rid of the dead flowers and slipped the paper creations out of the old vase and arranged them in the new one. _Now that that's done, how do I go about getting a bit of Konan's DNA?_ Orochimaru wondered, walking away. Without warning, he stopped cold in his tracks, quite glad that no one else was around to see him. _Either I'm a gold-plated genius or a complete and total fool,_ Orochimaru thought, slowly turning to face his floral arrangement. _I was there when Konan made those paper flowers. I don't remember her pulling out any paper to fold. The paper just… appeared. Every one of those flowers contains both her DNA and her chakra! _As Orochimaru rearranged the flowers to hide the gap that had been created by removing one of the paper flowers, he decided _Gold-plated genius._

Sasori, the final member Orochimaru needed DNA from, was proving to be even more of a problem than Pein had been. For one thing, he always traveled and fought from inside one of his favorite puppets, Hiruko. Orochimaru had only seen him without his casing once in all of his time as one of Akatsuki, and that had been because Hiruko had been damaged in a fight and Sasori wanted to repair him. When the red-haired man emerged, Orochimaru had been intrigued. The man must be over thirty at least but he had the slight frame and boyish face of one in his late teens. The round eyes that had stared at Orochimaru so defiantly, daring the Snake sannin to comment on his appearance, were set in a face of smooth, hollow curves unmarred by the passing of time. But Orochimaru, his primary affinity being that of snakes, did not have to rely entirely on his eyes to analyze his partner. He drew breath after quiet breath, letting the sensitive scent receptors in his mouth and nose take in every aspect of Sasori's scent.

That smell troubled him. Sasori smelled of warm, varnished wood and sharply of much-used and well-oiled metal, but not, to Orochimaru's quiet distress, of anything that a human normally possesses that could be taken for a DNA sample. He simply did not have the smells of hair or sweat or even of saliva. The only hopeful smell Orochimaru caught under the overwhelming odor of chakra-infused iron was the faintest, rusty smell of blood, coming from the vicinity of Sasori's chest cavity as he bent over Hiruko, a delicate tool gripped expertly in his hand. _So, your heart is human, no matter what the rest on you is, eh Sasori?_ Orochimaru thought. This was one problem he could attack directly. The only thing he could do was wait for an opportunity to present itself and, if need be, tweak the circumstances a bit.

And, as it just so happened, the very situation materialized no more than a couple of months after Orochimaru made his novel discovery abut the state of Sasori's true body. It was when Pein had directed Sasori and Orochimaru to go after Yashiki Matsuma, high-profile missing-nin hailing from Yugakure. Orochimaru thought wryly, as his sword glanced harmlessly off of Matsuma's plated bracers and he dodged a high kick, that perhaps Akatsuki's esteemed leader had underestimated this Yashiki Matsuma. He was putting up one hell of a fight. It was at this point that Orochimaru, having dodged a rapid succession of kicks and blows, and more than one potentially fatal projectile, failed to notice the final move of the set. Matsuma's knee slammed into his chest and sent him sprawling. He was prevented from getting up as several large shuriken that had been sent spinning after him the moment he had been knocked back slammed into the rock around him, pinning him tightly by his clothes and nicking and lacerating his flesh in several places. It was all he could do to crane his neck upwards to watch how Sasori was faring.

The puppet master, hidden inside Hiruko as usual, seemed to be holding his own. The scorpion-like tail of the massive puppet came whipping down to block a wild swing from Matsuma, just missing the missing-nin's face by a hairsbreadth. Matsuma struggled for the briefest moment before recognizing that he would be unable to gain any ground against the powerful jointed tail. Instead, he fell into a kind of crouch, disengaging his thick, heavy blade from Hiruko's tail, allowing the tail to arc of his head and slamming the wide, rounded pommel of his weapon down on the broad shell of the large puppet, using chakra to strengthen the blow. Orochimaru winced as the reinforced wood splintered and buckled, the body of the puppet completely collapsing in scant instants.

What Yashiki Matsuma could not see from his perch on top of Hiruko's shell, but what Orochimaru could see from his worm's eye vantage point was the red-haired figure released from the underbelly of the demolished puppet lightly drop to the ground and scuttle up and over the side of Hiruko's shell. Sasori was on Matsuma in an instant, one arm wrapped around Matsuma's throat and another fetching out a kunai. Matsuma, caught off guard not wasting time trying to draw breath, simple reversed his grip on his mighty blade, plunging it back under his own arm, the tip aimed straight for Sasori's heart. Orochimaru caught sight of a flash of purple. His nostrils dilated and he caught the tantalizing scent of blood. Then he realized that Matsuma had stopped moving. It probably had something to do with the poisoned kunai protruding from the side of his neck.

Sasori released his hold on Matsuma's body and let it topple off the back of his ruined puppet. Then he himself leapt down and Orochimaru was astonished to note that the red-haired man nearly stumbled upon landing. He approached Orochimaru, swaying slightly, and dropped to his knees to tug the shuriken out of the rocky earth, freeing his comrade. When he bent over Orochimaru, the Snake sannin saw a shallow gash in Sasori's chest right over the place one's heart would be in a normal human. The gash was leaking purplish liquid and the odor of fresh blood came to Orochimaru in gusts as Sasori straightened and stood up. Orochimaru pulled back his sleeves to examine the many cuts and bruises on his arms, pretending not to notice Sasori's condition.

It seemed that Sasori himself had barely noticed his injury. It was only when he looked down at the purple blood dripping down his robe that he reacted, exclaiming in annoyance and trying to stem the flow. Secretly, hidden from Sasori's sight on Hiruko's other side, Orochimaru crouched down to examine the thick, heavy sword that Matsuma had wielded. The last two inches of the tip were soaked in the same purplish blood that Sasori was still trying to clean up. Taking a quick glance at his partner, Orochimaru fetched out a small, tattered scroll and unsealed a glass vial, into which he scraped the precious drops of Sasori's blood before stoppering the vial and sealing it up again.

Orochimaru, consumed of late as he had been by his ambition to collect genetic material from every one of his teammates, was startled to discover that he had already been part of Akatsuki for several years, long enough to make him feel slightly superior when Sasori mentioned to him that there would soon be new member joining their ranks. Superior, as least, until he saw who the newest member was, saw him walk in wearing his new black and red robe zipped all the way up past his chin so that the collar was just below his eyes. And what eyes! As soon as Orochimaru met those eyes of Itachi Uchiha's, he remembered that before he had joined Akatsuki he had long fantasized about recruiting one of the famous Uchiha clan to be his new host. And the reason was all in the eyes.

Though Itachi treated Orochimaru to a look of dislike and mistrust every time he met his gaze, Orochimaru was unable to resist sneaking looks; such was the allure of the Sharingan.

Though Orochimaru had no use for Itachi as a new skin, he could certainly see the advantage of adding the might of the Uchiha clan doujutsu to his repertoire. However, Orochimaru soon grew frustrated with Itachi's wariness and guarded nature. Not once was there a chance for Orochimaru to salvage so much a drop of his blood, a strand of his hair, a sample of his sweat. Finally, Orochimaru knew that the only way he was leaving Akatsuki with Itachi's DNA was if he took it by force. And so he planned to finally leave Akatsuki for good. He may not be able to ensure that the process would be neat and painless, but he could at least ensure that it would be worthwhile.

Enraged, Orochimaru fell back before Itachi who straightened up slowly, surveying the Snake sannin coolly. "Give up," Itachi intoned quietly. "You will no longer be welcomed back into Akatsuki after this attack, and I know for certain you cannot return to the place where you were born. If you continue to struggle, you will fall before my Sharingan. Give up and depart intact."

"Brave words, Itachi _Uchiha,_" Orochimaru spat, drawing out a kunai inside of his robe where Itachi couldn't track the movement. "But you forget, I've got decades of experience on you. And anyway I-" Orochimaru had been trying very hard to keep still, to not move or lean forward or, by any inflection suggest his plan, but the time had come for action. He launched himself forward, his hand, with its modified kunai, darting out, aimed straight for Itachi's right eye. Itachi backed up-moving, weaving from left to right. Doggedly, Orochimaru followed him, his hand darting back and forth like a snake following the movement of its charmer's pipe.

Itachi lashed out and caught Orochimaru in his shin with a chakra-enhanced kick: to great effect as Orochimaru was already leaning forward, throwing his center of balance off. Orochimaru collapsed, the aches and injuries from the beginning of the fight making themselves known to him. He was back on his feet in an instant, however, roaring, "Come here and I'll cut your optic nerve right _out!"_ Once again he plunged forward and once again Itachi fell back. Orochimaru wondered why he didn't Shunshin or Kawirimi. A moment later, he had his answer.

"Kamui," Itachi uttered, still backing away. To his horror, Orochimaru saw his precious kunai begin to warp and be sucked in by a rapidly expanding glassy black void. In one last ditch effort, Orochimaru lurched forward, throwing both his and Itachi's aim off by a few inches. He had only time to feel the kunai in his hand bite deep into the skin just to the right of Itachi's eye and graze his cheekbone before he lost feeling in that hand altogether. For a timeless moment, made throbbing and staticky by pain, he stared uncomprehendingly at the stump of his arm and then at his detached hand, halfway through its fall to the cobbles. He hastily stooped and caught it, cradling it in his good hand before it could hit the ground. Shooting a bleeding Itachi a look of pure malevolence, Orochimaru Kawirimi'ed away, trying not to collapse and trying not to pass out and trying not to drop that kunai, more precious than either of his hands….

Orochimaru woke up lying on his back. For a moment he thought it was nighttime and that the sky above him-he could tell by the freshness of the air and the inconsistent air pressure on his skin that he was still out of doors- was dark until he thought to open his eyes and discovered that it was only late afternoon. This fact was only registered in the back of his mind, though, because it took a backseat to the fact that there was someone leaning over him… a potential threat.

Instinctively Orochimaru kicked out, catching the stranger in the gut. While the young man bent over struggling to breathe and trying not to vomit from the ferocity of the attack, Orochimaru sat up. Finding the modified kunai still in his hand, Orochimaru made haste to stow it away and draw out a more normal one. When the young man before him finally straightened up, Orochimaru was ready, his good hand shooting out to press the kunai to the young man's throat. He stopped moving immediately, though Orochimaru could feel him swallow nervously. He stared with wide blue eyes from behind a curtain of bright blonde hair. He really was awfully young. "Hands," Orochimaru rasped. "Show me your hands."

The young man slowly raised his hands to shoulder height, palms outward in the classic See-I'm-Not-Armed gesture. Orochimaru's eyes flickered to the palms of hands and then back to the boy's face, slightly confused.

The young man chuckled nervously, stopping when he felt the cold knife riding his Adam's apple. "Yeah, people always ask about the mouths when they first see my hands-un. Actually, it's a funny-" Orochimaru didn't wait for the rest of the chatty boy's sentence. Withdrawing the kunai from the boy's throat, he made haste to drop it point-down in the grass. While the boy's eyes automatically followed the falling knife, Orochimaru used his now-free hand to shut the boy up, clapping the heel of his open palm to the young man's temple, hard. The boy's eyes rolled back and he collapsed, out cold. Orochimaru stood to leave, though not before picking up his kunai and relieving the boy of a few of his long, blonde hairs. Even in his pained and weakened state, Orochimaru was a scientist at heart and not one to pass up a chance too good to miss.

Orochimaru growled in annoyance. He would have to remember to invent a special, nasty punishment for that man who thought it would be amusing to give Orochimaru-sama a female skin to reside in for the next three years. Not that the body looked remotely female now that Orochimaru had managed to convert it to something closer to his own style. But the point was that the woman had, in life, had no particular skills useful to a skilled shinobi.

This made it all the more urgent that Orochimaru begin work crafting his perfect host. He wanted it to be ready by the time his stay in his current skin was up. So he began to take in test subjects, shinobi, of course, being his preference. In a matter of months his call for test subjects seemed to spread like wildfire, passed on by word of mouth. In no time at all, people not only began to offer themselves and others of their villages to Orochimaru specifically for testing, but others, malcontents and missing-nin alike, began to cluster around Orochimaru, viewing him as a sort of demi-Kage and a leader in harsh times. Orochimaru, being a clever and practical man, despite his many faults and vices, saw all of these things and turned them to his advantage, forming the Village Hidden in the Sound, Otogakure, with himself as the leader. No only did this move supply him with a nigh-endless influx of willing test subjects, but it gave him power, status, recognition, and an army, things that seemed, to him, sure to show those weak shinobi of Konoha just whom they had banished all those years ago.

_No!_ Orochimaru pressed his hands against the one-way glass. His slitted eyes flickered from monitor to monitor, from cot to cot. Just when he thought that an entire batch of test subjects was going to survive the first infusion, just when every last one of them had stabilized hours after the shots, suddenly their vitals were going haywire! Through the glass he could hear the disheartening noise of heart rate monitors flat-lining, one after the other. It was a noise he had heard all too often in the last few months. In his anger and frustration, Orochimaru pounded his fist against the glass before mentally composing himself and retiring to his study.

On his desk were two file reports Orochimaru had been avoiding reading for days. Slowly, he slid the first one toward him and opened it. On the inside was clipped a picture of one of Orochimaru's pet test subjects, Kimimaro Kaguya. Orochimaru flipped up the medical reports, hopeful in case they should contain good news about the sickly bone-user. The news was anything but good. Orochimaru's right-hand man and top medic Kabuto, a recent addition to Orochimaru's staff, had been working to cure the young Kaguya's mysterious illness since the bone-user had first arrived, but to no avail. Orochimaru slammed down the file. He did not want to read Kabuto's dismal predictions that 'the boy's condition may worsen with time, completely deteriorating by the time he reaches the age of fifteen.'

Orochimaru turned to the other file on his desk, sliding it toward him and flipping it open. Inside was a picture of the scowling face of Jugo, a tall, orange-haired boy who had arrived in Otogakure along with Kimimaro. Though his violent and unstable split personality rendered him unsuitable for possession, his talents and abilities were utterly desirable to Orochimaru. He had adopted the task of extracting the enzymes that caused Jugo's physical transformations as a side project to take his mind off of the long, depressing months of failing to have a single subject survive one of the DNA infusions. Orochimaru secretly hoped one day to be able to transfer Jugo's powers to all of his soldiers, minus the deranged personality, of course.

Orochimaru flipped Jugo's file closed and pushed it away from him, settling down in his chair. Little though he wanted to, his forced himself to think on the day's experiments. _Another batch dead. Oh, why are all of my shinobi so _weak_? Why is everyone always _failing me?_ I need to come up with a solution to this, and soon. _Orochimaru rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Finally, after several minutes of sitting in silence, he called in Kabuto.

When the silver-haired, bespectacled boy entered the room, he hastily dropped down on one knee in the style of the old legionaries. Orochimaru swiveled his chair so it faced the door and Kabuto. "Stand up, Kabuto," Orochimaru said. Kabuto hastened to do as he bid. _Good boy, Kabuto,_ Orochimaru thought grudgingly. _Got a good mind for medical jutsu and a keen interest in the scientific side of everything. Reminds me of me, a bit. Still, if he has no good news, this confrontation may not be very good for his health._ "What do you have to tell me, Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked.

Kabuto, perhaps hearing the note of warning in Orochimaru's voice, avoided his slitted gaze. "I have nothing new to report, Orochimaru-sama," he mumbled.

"You see, Kabuto, I've been working on this project for months, trying to create the perfect host. You should know. You've been on and off that project for as long as you've worked for me."

"Yes, I am aware, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto pushed up his glasses to disguise how his hands were trembling.

"Well, you would have thought, wouldn't you, that by now we'd be seeing some results. But no." Orochimaru brought his hand down on a pile of file folders in a tray on his desk. "Every single one of my test subjects thus far has died, Kabuto. I am running out of time and patience. You'd better start making suggestions fast, or I may just begin to take a serious look at _you_ with your regeneration techniques."

Kabuto's eyes widened for the briefest of moments behind his glasses. He attempted to speak but only a harsh croak escaped his lips. He had to lick the sweat from his lip and clear his throat. Despite these measures, his voice was shaky with terror. Orochimaru approved.

"As it so happens, Orochimaru-sama, I believe I may have a possible solution to you problem."

Orochimaru leaned forward, instantly riveted. "Choose your words very carefully, Kabuto, as they could either save or condemn you."

Kabuto acknowledged this. "Hai, Orochimaru-sama. It has come to me that, as your problem is that you cannot find one with a body strong enough or perhaps DNA stable enough to accommodate additions to their genetic code, what you really need is someone with a power that will literally not allow them to die."

"What you say sounds promising," Orochimaru admitted, "But I hope for your sake that you have something a bit more specific in mind, something more than pure postulation."

"I do, Orochimaru-sama. What I have for you is a name." Kabuto pushed up his glasses once more and the light on the desk behind Orochimaru danced on the round lenses, causing them to turn briefly opaque, momentarily occluding Kabuto's eyes. "The name I have… is Naruto Uzumaki."


	2. Chapter 2

**I Do Not Own Naruto or Any Of the Characters  
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**The Greatest Monster**

**Chapter 2**

" **Saying"**

_**Thinking**_

Naruto sat on the swing-seat thinking to himself. _Hey, it's not so bad. You started at the academy when you were two years younger than everyone else, so it's no wonder they all have chakra control two years ahead of yours! You can always try again next year. _There was a throat-clearing noise behind him. Naruto jumped and twisted around in the seat, nearly slipping backwards off of the swing. In the large, dappled shade that the tree above was casting stood Mizuki-sensei, and he had a proposition for Naruto. The ten-year-old boy didn't quite understand what Mizuki meant by these 'tests' he was being considered for, but he did understand that Mizuki was offering him specialized, one-on-one training with a group located outside of Konoha such as the type that would make him a powerful shinobi in no time.

"Are you willing to try it, Naruto?" Mizuki asked, a smile twisting his cruel mouth. Naruto nodded vehemently. "Then come with me at once so I can prepare you for your journey. Don't worry about Hokage-sama," Mizuki said as Naruto opened his mouth to comment on the abruptness of the decision, "I will inform him of where you have gone. Who knows, when you come back in a few years, you may find that Hokage-sama recognizes you to be strong enough to make chunin. After these tests, there will be no question whatsoever that you are ready to make genin at the very least." Well, what could Naruto do? Mizuki had said the magic words.

Naruto hopped down from the swing and followed Mizuki some distance, soon leaving the familiar, looming shape of the shinobi academy behind and travelling through the heart of the market district. Before too long they were out in the outskirts of the village, where broken glass and stray papers littered the ground and the buildings were of the narrow, crowded, choked-looking brick variety that Naruto found rather displeasing, as it reminded him a bit of the district where his own apartment was located, all grimy windows and broken streetlights. Naruto vaguely wondered why they had had to walk so far, but his queries were mostly eclipsed by the unexpected turn his life had just made, and sheer excitement kept bursting through his creeping doubts.

Mizuki had turned down a broad, deserted side street and Naruto stepped up behind him, rounding the corner to find that Mizuki had turned to face the mouth of the side street and with it, Naruto, who wasted no time approaching his sensei. Mizuki crouched down, placing his eye level slightly below Naruto's though he avoided looking the blonde-haired boy in the eye, one hand taking hold of Naruto's forearm and the other fumbling for something in his pocket, still smiling, always smiling, so coldly, so insincerely. "Now hold still, Naruto," Mizuki said, pulling back Naruto's sleeve and, before the boy could protest, expertly injecting him with a thin, clear liquid.

Naruto swayed, eyes unfocused, and collapsed. Mizuki scooped up the unconscious boy and stood waiting until he saw a shadow flicker down at the end of the street. He strode over to meet the robed, bespectacled figure.

"Well done, Mizuki. Orochimaru-sama will be most pleased with your work."

"Thank you, Kabuto-san," Mizuki said, handing the sleeping child over. "What are my new orders?"

"Remain here, undercover, until you next receive instruction," Kabuto said, adjusting Naruto's limp form on his shoulder and concealing him in a fold of his cloak. He gave Mizuki a brief nod and left, taking Naruto with him.

Naruto awoke slowly, groggy and confused. The bed he was lying on was too hard and the light shining in his face too bright. Naruto sat up and slid off of the high table, blinking the dazzle out of his smarting eyes and looking around him. Young though he was, Naruto could recognize a hospital room when he saw one, and this room, with its harsh lighting, operating table, and scrubbed tiling seemed like a bizarre mixture of hospital and autopsy lab, both of which Naruto had previously had the displeasure to experience in his short life within the confines of the walls of Konoha.

There was a large sheet of dark mirror set into one wall, no doubt a one-way window for observing what was happening in _this_ room from the safety and relative comfort of an adjoining room, like the ones they used in the Torture and Interrogation department. Naruto went over to that mirror and tapped on it, reasoning that he wouldn't be in a room with a one-way mirror if no one were watching him. "Hello?" he called tentatively.

In the next room, Orochimaru watched as his new host sat up and looked around. "Take a look, Kabuto. This is the start of your newest fulltime project." He clapped Kabuto on the shoulder. "Congratulations." Kabuto noticed that the Snake sannin seemed in unusually good spirits.

Kabuto dubiously watched the blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy as he looked around the spartan room. "From what I've been told, the boy is practically illiterate," he said.

"Well, if your plan of depending on the Kyuubi to keep young Naruto alive comes to nothing, it won't matter. Why don't you go and prepare him for his first infusion?"

Kabuto was startled. "So soon, Orochimaru-sama?"

Orochimaru shrugged, smiling playfully as he watched Naruto approach the tinted one-way-mirror. "If he doesn't survive the first operation, there's no need to train him," Orochimaru pointed out. "If he does survive it, _then_ you may begin to bring him up to speed. Teach him to read first, I think. That will make your job easier in the future."

Kabuto strode to the exit of the room but did not open the door yet. His hand resting on the doorknob, he turned back to look at Orochimaru. "The boy will undoubtedly have questions. What do I tell him?"

"Anything you want. Just do not tell him my eventual plans for him or what exactly the experiments we will be performing on him consist of." Kabuto nodded and turned to the door, but stopped as Orochimaru spoke one last time. "Oh, and Kabuto, don't tell him about the Kyuubi. We'll have to let him know eventually, but all in good time."

"Of course, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto left, shutting the door behind him with a quiet, respectful click. Orochimaru shifted his gaze back to the window, a smile manifesting on his pale face when Naruto jumped as the door to the operation room was unlocked and pushed open.

Naruto started around as there was the loud click of a lock turning over, and the door was pushed inwards. A boy entered. He was tall and looked to be around fifteen, old, from Naruto's perspective, but nowhere near as old as Jiji. He wore his mid-length silver hair tied back and round glasses perched on his nose. When he spotted Naruto standing by the mirror, he smiled. Naruto wasn't entirely sure he liked that smile. "Who are you?" Naruto asked accusatorially. "Where am I? What happened to Mizuki?"

"I am Kabuto Yakushi, and this one of the labs of my master. Mizuki works for the same man as I do and remained in Konoha while we brought you here."

"Why did you take me here?" Naruto asked, backing up as Kabuto tried to approach him.

"You agreed to perform a couple of tests for us in exchange for us training you to be a great shinobi," Kabuto explained.

"What kind of tests?" Naruto asked suspiciously. However, at the mention of the tests that Mizuki had spoken of, he took a step forward in spite of himself. Encouraged, Kabuto leaned against the edge of the operating table on which Naruto had awoken and patted the surface, inviting Naruto to sit up on it. Naruto did so, perching himself on the edge as far away from Kabuto as he could get.

"These tests are nothing special, maybe a few new vitamin supplements every couple of months," Kabuto said casually. "Probably nothing immediately noticeable will happen, but it can't hurt."

"Why me?" Naruto asked.

Kabuto was growing weary of the incessant questions, but he kept the smile grafted onto his smooth, pale face so as not to alert the boy. "We are interested in you. You have incredible chakra reserves and your healing rate gives you great potential as a shinobi. We only recently discovered you through Mizuki and we want to see you trained right."

For the first time, Naruto stopped focusing entirely on being wary and began expending a bit of his mind to taking interest in what was happening to him. "What will you teach me?"

Kabuto waved a finger at Naruto. "Not yet; that would be telling. And you just got here! There are some preliminary tests we'd like to perform on you before I begin to teach you anything. Nothing of the pass-or-fail variety, I just want to know a bit more about your current skills and limitations before I begin." Kabuto pulled a vial out of his pocket and a small glass out of another. He quickly decanted the liquid from the vial into the glass and handed it to Naruto. "Please drink this."

Naruto sniffed the drink suspiciously, but was unable to detect any but a slight, oily, waxy, scent. It didn't smell like anything dangerous that Naruto had ever drunk before, so he downed it in one swallow. Kabuto quickly slid the glass out of Naruto's slack fingers and laid him face up on the operating table so he wouldn't topple off from his perch on the edge. He ignored the accusing look on Naruto's face as the boy once again fell unconscious.

The door opened and Orochimaru entered, stepping to Kabuto's side and looking down into Naruto's sleeping face. "Well done. Prepare the first infusion and we'll give it to him immediately."

Kabuto walked over to one of the counters along the wall and took out a key. Unlocking a wall-mounted cabinet, he swung open the door to reveal racks of samples and experimental infusions that did not require refrigeration. The more unstable solutions would not have been kept in the room where a valuable test subject was left to resurface from a drugged sleep. Kabuto reached up, gloved fingers hovering before the racks of vials. "Which one, Orochimaru-sama?"

Orochimaru hesitated for no more than a heartbeat. "Konan's DNA first, I think. He can't do much harm with it, and if his body can't handle turning from flesh to paper and back, you'll soon see and know if we ought to scrap this project and start over with someone new." Orochimaru gave Kabuto a meaningful look.

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto's fingers closed around a slim, glass vial and lifted it out of the rack, swinging the cabinet door to and locking it before returning to Orochimaru with the vial. Earlier he had, through methodical trial and error using normal paper, come upon a way to convert paper into a liquid form that it was possible to inoculate one with. Kabuto handed the vial to Orochimaru and, while Kabuto hooked Naruto up to various apparatuses that would monitor Naruto's heart rate, brain patterns, breathing rate, chakra levels, and the like, Orochimaru loaded the solution into a hypodermic needle. When Naruto was all set up- Kabuto had even gone so far as to strap him to the table- Orochimaru approached the boy, holding the needle.

He injected the infusion directly into the main ulnar artery in Naruto's right arm. No sooner than he had removed the needle, the chamber empty, the prick-mark closed up before single drop of blood could spill, healing without so much as a lingering scar. _That Youki is useful stuff,_ Orochimaru mused, stepping away from the table. _Too bad I shall probably have to extract the Kyuubi from the boy before I can claim possession of his skin. _He disposed of the used needle and gave Kabuto strict instructions to watch Naruto, to keep him sedated until his vitals had returned to normal, and, if he was still alive at that point, to then move him to the room that had been prepared for him. If and when he woke naturally in the new room, he was to be fed. At that point, Kabuto was to use his judgment about when to begin Naruto's lessons, though he was not to begin teaching Naruto to use the powers that his new DNA would hopefully grant him. Those lessons would begin only with Orochimaru's express orders.

Kabuto sat by Naruto for most of the next few days, watching the various monitors and, every so often, injecting another dose of sedative, spacing the doses so that the Kyuubi never had enough time to burn off the last batch before the newest amount was injected. At first, Naruto's vitals had all but shut down, his breathing had slowed until the rise and fall of his chest was barely visible and his heart rate had slowed so much that Kabuto was constantly on tenterhooks as to whether the next tiny rise in the flat line on the monitor would ever come. His brain activity had become erratic as well, sometimes there would be hours of nothing but the normal, automatic commands and signals, telling the heart to pump and the lungs to breathe and the like, but not much else, save for an occasional dream spike. At other times, there would be endless minutes of feverish activity, flurries of spikes and blips in the monitors, though for the most part he was quiet.

After the first two or three days, however, Naruto became constantly restless; he would mumble long streams of nonsense syllables and his breath would come harder until he was gasping and panting and Kabuto could see his eyelids twitching in REM sleep. During those times, his brain activity was that of one who is alert, albeit of one who has been awake for far too long on nowhere near enough sleep and is being asked to perform strenuous mental calisthenics.

At long last, after nearly six days, Naruto settled down. From the monitors and Naruto's still form, from the steady rising and falling of his chest, Kabuto deduced that the storm had finally passed and it was time to wake up the subject. He unhooked all of the monitors, carefully shutting them off as he did so. He then picked up Naruto's limp form and carried him out of the room and into a nearby room that had specially prepared for him. Kabuto then retired, closing the door behind him quietly so as not wake up the blonde boy, who had passed smoothly from drug-induced unconsciousness to true sleep as seamlessly as one normally does from standing to sitting. Kabuto retreated the room adjacent to Naruto's, to which the former was connected via a one-way mirrored window so that Kabuto would see the moment when Naruto woke up, and perhaps get some rest until then.

Naruto awoke and sat up immediately. He felt very slightly achy all over, but the feeling soon dissipated and he forgot the unusual sensation entirely. He took a look around the room he was in. There was one door, which was, when Naruto tried it, locked. On the wall opposite the door was another blank expanse of tinted, mirrored glass. The low bunk that he had woken up in was pushed against the wall located to the right of the one with the mirror on it. All in all, the room was about the size of his old apartment back in Konoha, with a dirty, tiled floor.

"I know the drill," Naruto muttered to himself as he walked up to the tinted mirror. "Hey!" he said, pounding on the window, "Let me out! Everyone in here is dead!"

Naruto listened attentively, smiling in appreciation when he heard first one crash, muffled as it was by walls and distance, and then another as the door to the room burst open and Kabuto appeared, kunai in hand, ready for trouble.

"What was that?" he asked tightly. Naruto could see that the older boy was a bit short on sleep and patience.

Naruto chuckled. He had once yelled the same thing as he just had when he had the misfortune to be locked in the boy's bathroom back in the academy. They had gotten him out quickly enough, but he had had to endure a lecture right after by one of his least favorite senseis. "Do you have anything to eat?" he asked.

Kabuto stowed the kunai in a holster and stood, smoothing back his hair with one hand, collecting his thoughts. "Yes, of course," He said after a moment. He left the room, returning a minute later with a tray bearing a bowl of broth, a small loaf of bread, a couple of apples and a glass and pitcher of water. Naruto fell on the food, practically inhaling it before Kabuto's bemused eyes. "What now?" he asked, placing an apple core in the empty bowl.

"Now you sit down and tell me how you feel," Kabuto said seriously.

Naruto thought it was a strange request, after all, he didn't remember anything between when he fell asleep in that other room and awoke in this one, but answered impatiently, without sitting down, "I'm fine. Can we start training?"

Kabuto raised an eyebrow at Naruto's eagerness. "If you feel up to it, fine. Come with me." Naruto obediently followed as Kabuto led him out into the hallway and through the rambling passages until he stopped before a door, unremarkable in its similarity to all the others they had passed on the way. Kabuto unlocked the door and ushered Naruto through before quickly following and locking the door securely behind him. It seemed that Kabuto was an avid locker of things.

Naruto looked around at the shelves upon shelves rising up to the ceiling all around him, each one packed to overflowing with scrolls and books. "I don't get it. You're going to train me in a library?" Naruto had never had much use for libraries and was disappointed in Kabuto's choice of venue.

"In a manner of speaking. Sit down, Naruto," Kabuto said, sliding into a low chair situated beside the nearest table.

Reluctantly, Naruto joined him, sprawling in the seat and giving Kabuto his best sarcastic stare. Kabuto, pretending not to see, pulled forward a couple of books that had been neatly stacked on the corner of the table.

"What, you're going to teach me to read or something?" Naruto asked disgustedly.

"Yes. It's all part of the intensive training program you're on. You have to start at the beginning and learn the basics first, before we teach you the advanced jutsu. This isn't the academy, where they constantly push gifted students ahead before they have time to get a proper grounding in everything one is supposed to learn in the academy about being a shinobi," Kabuto said sternly.

"Don't waste your time," Naruto said scornfully, "I already know how to read."

"Oh yes?" Kabuto said, in a voice that was just not a snap, his patience wearing thin. "Read this for me." Kabuto slid a book, a medical textbook, out from the pile, thumbed through until he reached a page that had been marked with a narrow strip of paper, and pushed it across the table at Naruto.

Naruto stared down at the incomprehensible wording and language, at the footnotes and variables and Latin phrases. After a few minutes, he glanced up at Kabuto, who was watching him closely with an expression that showed that he didn't know whether to be smug or sympathetic.

"Well?" Kabuto prompted him. "Can you read it?"

"I did read it," Naruto said on a sudden flash of inspiration.

"What?"

"I read it in my head."

Naruto didn't even see Kabuto move, but the next moment, his right arm was being twisted up behind his back excruciatingly and he was leaning forward, his nose almost touching the tabletop to try and take some of the agonizing pressure off of his arm, the muscles of which were screaming for release. "Do not lie to me," Kabuto said in a low voice. "I am trying to give you the kind of basic training you should have gotten years ago, but I cannot help you if you do not cooperate with me." Kabuto released Naruto, who sat back and flexed his arm, already feeling the viciously strained and torn muscles flex and reattach, though they would still ache for another quarter of an hour at least.

Kabuto, already seated once again in his chair on the other side of the table, turned to a few pages before the one that had been bookmarked so that the book was open at the beginning of a chapter. "Do attend," Kabuto said, slightly mockingly, in Naruto's opinion. The blonde-haired boy glowered. "If you allow me to teach you the basics, like reading and chakra control, early on, it paves the way for me to teach you more advanced jutsu and techniques later on; maybe not even that much later on if you just pay attention now."

"Do I really have a choice here?" Naruto asked, rubbing his upper arm.

"Not really, although your attitude and compliance will dictate how much, if any, pressure I exert on you in order to gain your cooperation." Naruto's blue eyes flicked back and forth between Kabuto's black eyes, unsure what to make of the older boy. There was a gleam in Kabuto's eyes and the merest suggestion of a smile around the serious mouth, signs that Naruto's common sense told him he should not test, as they were those of a mind that would come unhinged if presented with the wrong set of answers and should, therefore, be obeyed, at least for the time being.

Naruto gave a long, reluctant sigh. "Alright then. If it means I can learn new jutsu sooner, let's just get this over with." So Kabuto began to teach Naruto, letting him practice reading the medical journals and textbooks. Naruto's recognition and inference skills increased at a truly startling pace, and it was no more than a week before Kabuto was almost forced to ask why Naruto had barely been able to read before if he naturally learned so incredibly swiftly.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably. "It's hard to learn fast when the teacher has a class of more than thirty kids and you're the youngest one. My senseis couldn't slow it down for me to let me catch up or teach me one-on-one," he said, considering.

"Nonsense. You're a natural; it's not possible that that's the only reason," _Unless it is some effect of the Kyuubi objecting to us tampering with Naruto's DNA. Or maybe it's simply that I'm an even better teacher than Orochimaru-sama thought I was._

"Well, I guess being forced to leave the classroom and sit out in the hallway at least three or four times a week, sometimes for hours at a time, may not have helped," Naruto admitted, oblivious to Kabuto's private conjectures.

Kabuto pushed his round glasses up on his nose, giving Naruto a smile that actually held a modicum of genuine pleasure, for a wonder. " Your progress is advancing at a sufficient pace, meaning that it's time I began training you to control your chakra a bit better." _Though, hopefully, his chakra control will improve once we give him the puppet-user's DNA, meaning I won't have to rely on him grasping this on his own. From what I was told, his chakra control is almost as abysmal as his literacy was, though, unlike reading, this most likely won't be a thing he'll be able to just pick up naturally without working at it._

Naruto's eyes were crossed from staring at the leaf that rested on his forehead. Kabuto sighed in exasperation. "Don't you know how to channel chakra to different parts of your body?" Kabuto asked.

Naruto shook his head, momentarily forgetting the leaf and quickly catching it before it could flutter to the floor. "Cut me some slack; I'm just a kid," Naruto said, a slight edge to his voice. He did not like it when Kabuto made it sound like Naruto should have been born knowing things that he had never been taught, as if Naruto were somehow inferior or substandard.

Kabuto opened his mouth to reply, but paused, realizing he had been about to start a sentence with 'When I was your age,' which would not have been received well. Instead, he said, "I cannot cut you any slack. To do so would be to belittle your prospects as a shinobi."

"No, to do so would be to cut me a little slack and actually teach and show me instead of just lecturing. It would be more use," Naruto countered, tilting his head back once more to balance the leaf on his forehead.

Naruto actually made a fair point, though Kabuto would never admit it, and so the silver-haired boy resigned himself to explaining the basics of chakra systems and flow patterns, tenketsu, and how to channel chakra without using a handseal to mold it. It took a good hour or so to give Naruto a basic sketch of everything he wanted to know, even though the boy seemed only to have to hear a thing once in order to commit it to memory. The entire time that Kabuto spoke, Naruto stared at the leaf between his eyes. He was actually trying to follow the instructions that Kabuto gave him as the silver-haired boy gave them to him, trying to guess the next step before Kabuto could outline it in his quiet, precise voice.

When he had, for the most part, finished speaking, Kabuto leaned against the wall, watching Naruto struggle and making comments and suggestions, which he thought of as helpful rather than irritating.

Meanwhile, Naruto was definitely starting to develop a headache, what with trying to focus his chakra through a point on his face that he couldn't even see and keeping his head tipped back, and staring at something right between his eyes, and trying to recall how Kabuto had said to do it, and trying to simultaneously heed Kabuto's comments and block out their more distracting and downright irritating aspects…. Finally, Kabuto left, telling Naruto to knock on the door, which was, of course, locked from the outside, when he was finished for the day.

Naruto let his aching neck relax as his head fell forward. He didn't even bother catching the leaf as it spiraled to the tiled floor. _I know it can be done, and I know that I won't be taken any farther until I master this, so I'll just have to keep practicing. Maybe I'm concentrating too much on focusing the chakra. Maybe Kabuto's skipping a step without realizing it. Maybe I have to be able to channel a lot of chakra before I can work it down to something smaller that I can control. In which case, why do I have to start with my head?_

Naruto sat down, leaning his stiff back against the wall as he crossed his legs. The smooth wall seemed to be doing his neck and back some good, as he barely felt the soreness at all now, and his headache was almost gone. Naruto cupped his hands together, supporting the right one in his left and resting them in his lap, holding the leaf. Naruto closed his eyes and anxiously searched himself all over for his core, for the center of his chakra system, the chakra coils, as Kabuto had explained to him. He found them, a sort of pulsing of energy, not unlike a heartbeat, around the vicinity of his navel. And, again like a heartbeat or pulse, he could almost trace its path by the pressure and energy it brought throughout his body. However, the sensation was so faint that he couldn't be more than half sure that the pathways were really there at all, that he wasn't projecting upon himself sensations that he hoped and expected to feel.

_Oh, what the hell, it's worth a shot,_ He thought. Carefully, he imagined drawing the energy from his core, forcing it through a network of paths no wider than threads until it pooled in the palm of his right hand. A slight smile flickered across Naruto's face as he noticed the leaf flutter and lift slightly, as though it was sitting on top of a puddle of water. Sitting there long enough to get the technique to work had not taken very long by anyone's standards, but Naruto was renowned for his hyperactivity, and while some if it was an act, a front, and just a bit of it had been ironed out of him already during his brief stay in Orochimaru's hospitalities, Naruto still preferred moving to sitting still, and got up to pace, wishing that he was already proficient enough to practice leaf-floating as he moved.

A few days later, the leaf once again perched on his forehead, Naruto screwed up his eyes. A strong gust of chakra, so saturated that Naruto could practically smell, it, lifted the leaf a good five inches into the air and held it there for a split second, before it tumbled, flipping end over end until it slid to rest on the smooth tiles.

Kabuto surveyed Naruto critically. "You're wasting far too much chakra," he commented, uncrossing his arms and stepping forward from where he leaned against the wall in order to pick up the fallen leaf. "Your chakra is spraying out in all directions. The whole point of chakra control is to focus that energy into a single point and direct in that way. Thus," Kabuto stripped off one of his gloves, laying the leaf on the exposed palm and, in a moment, sending the leaf spinning toward the ceiling. As it fell, Kabuto caught it, having had time to pull his glove back on, and offered the leaf to Naruto with a courtly bow. Naruto resisted the urge to break the silver-haired boy's glasses.

It was another week before Naruto could float the leaf above his head at a constant height of three inches for minutes on end. In the process of learning to do that, he had also learned to float the same leaf above each of his hands, though it took him a few seconds longer to get the leaf aloft above his left hand than it did his right. He was starting to hate that leaf, seriously and personally.

While he was struggling with that, Kabuto began to train him physically as well and assigning Naruto passages to read each night. Naruto would normally have been of the opinion that the work load was worse than that of the academy, but to his mild surprise, he found that he was quite enjoying all of it. Even the reading material was interesting, though he still had to refer to the lexicon that Kabuto had supplied him with, so that the reading assignments took longer than usual, as Naruto was actually trying to piece together the words and understand them. Some of them were myths and stories about the bijuu and some were scientific and medical journals. Some spoke of chakra theory in such a way that Naruto no longer wondered why Kabuto had been so condescending when he had discovered how poor Naruto's chakra control was. Naruto resolved to begin improving fast enough to make Kabuto seriously worried about his own status as a proficient chakra-user.

The physical part of Naruto's training was even more interesting, consisting of everything from flexibility to brute strength, from aiming projectiles to strategy. Here, when Kabuto found that Naruto had more-or-less perfected leaf floating, he began to introduce chakra to the physical training. Almost the first thing on his list to teach to Naruto was to sick to surfaces using chakra.

At first, he went about it the traditional way, showing Naruto how to channel chakra through his feet and his ninja sandals, and then how to adhere that chakra to vertical surfaces, creating a bond that could support weight. Naruto wasn't very good at waiting for his chakra to bond firmly, and consequently would often try to put weight on a foot that was barely stuck onto the wall at all, resulting in a lot of flailing and quality time with the floor. Kabuto, impatient with these results, devised a new way of doing things.

"Climb!" Kabuto yelled, loosing a hail of shuriken. Naruto scrambled up as fast as he could, zigzagging up the vertical surface as though it was nothing more than a flat parquet floor. The first few times Kabuto had done this, Naruto had gotten pierced quite a lot, mostly in the back, as he struggled to make his chakra bond, but he had soon gotten better both at dodging and sticking. As he raced across the ceiling, he reflected drily that the least Kabuto could have done would be to give Naruto a kunai or shuriken to deflect the projectiles.

No sooner than Naruto had developed a rough grasp of sticking to surfaces, than Kabuto began showing Naruto how to enhance his muscles with chakra, prolonging how long Naruto could run or fight or how far he could jump. Naruto though this was a bit sadistic and underhanded, as it gave Kabuto an excuse to train Naruto for hours on end each day, insisting that Naruto perform complicated manuvers and exercises daily, building up strength and chakra reserves alike and only allowing him one day off a week for pure study without any physical enterprises. Naruto would spar with Kabuto, taking to the walls and ceiling to avoid the older boy's wild attacks and projectiles. When they were locked in those brief flurries of close combat, not once did Naruto emerge victorious. Always he was distracted by Kabuto's illusory clones or by Kabuto's use of chakra scalpels or the kind of ninja tools that Naruto was never supplied with.

It wasn't long before Kabuto began talking about teaching Naruto how to make clones of his own or to henge, or even to kawirimi, things, as the silver-haired boy pointed out, that any academy graduate could do. "But before I start you on any of those jutsu, I have something else in mind," Kabuto said.

Naruto looked up from the book in his lap, legs out straight on his bed, it being his day off. "What do you want, Kabuto?" Naruto asked. He had quickly discovered that it did no good to be polite to Kabuto, as the older boy did not seem to care one way or the other if Naruto was rude. In fact, from time to time Naruto got the impression that the older boy like being stood up to- liked a challenge. Not at the moment, though, it seemed.

"I have a visitor for you. She's going to be training you in a very specific form of jutsu, but before you meet her, I need you to come with me. You're due for another test."

Naruto raised an eyebrow, not stirring an inch. He could recognize the bribe; cooperate and take the test and not only learn a new jutsu, learn it from someone other than Kabuto. "Test?" he asked innocently.

"Remember that you are only here to be trained on the condition that you take these tests for us, Naruto," Kabuto said pleasantly, though with an undertone that suggested trouble if Naruto was to try and pretend otherwise.

Naruto sighed, dropping the book onto the mattress, which creaked as he swung himself off, ready to follow Kabuto. Kabuto waited until Naruto was out in the hallway before joining him and locking the door behind. Naruto followed Kabuto back to the room where he had first woken up, the room with the shiny, metal table.

By now, Naruto knew enough about rudimentary medicine to recognize it as an operating room, a surprisingly underequipped one, too, unless all of the necessary tools and materials were securely shut away behind the cabinet doors or locked in the drawers. As a result, he was even more wary than the first time this had happened when Kabuto handed him a glass and told him to drink. He couldn't remember drinking anything like it before- the result of a mild anesthetic mixed in, though he wasn't to know that- but he had an inkling from the substance's scent that this didn't bode well. However, Naruto, foolish though it was, trusted Kabuto not to poison him after all the training the older boy had put his way, though he did find his blue eyes straying to the tinted mirror set into the wall. He looked away with a shiver of misplaced memories and half-recollections. Hadn't this happened before? If so, why didn't he remember more clearly? His head swam.

"Drink it, Naruto," Kabuto insisted. And Naruto, against his better judgment, did as he was told.

Kabuto once again rescued the glass before it could smash and scooped Naruto up, laying him out on the table and securely strapping him down before busying himself hooking the supine boy up to the various monitors and meters. Kabuto paused for the briefest moment in his preparations, gloved fingers light and tense on the boy's wrist, listening, giving the smallest of satisfied smiles when he heard the door behind him swing open, when he saw a pale blur of a man reflected in the tinted mirror on the wall directly in front of him. Schooling his expression, Kabuto once again returned to the task of preparing the boy as Orochimaru came up beside him and looked down into the face of the sleeping boy.

"I have read your reports and projections, Kabuto, and must say that the first month of this project has been progressing admirably under your command."

"Thank you, Orochimaru-sama. Which one this time?"

Orochimaru drew a small vial of watery purple liquid from his pocket; clearly the sample had been treated and diluted since Kabuto had last seen it. For a moment, Orochimaru held up the vial, eyes flickering between it and the sleeping face of the boy. Finally, he handed the vial to Kabuto. "Start training him to manipulate puppets, but do not tell him what kind of puppets he's working up to. Keep him reading medical texts, if you can. It will be very useful if he can create a puppet before I can possess him, as his chakra will then already be familiar with it and his muscles adapted to puppet work. But no human puppets too soon- we don't want to break his spirit this early. That would lead to complications. See to it." He left.

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto muttered, as the door swung closed. He proceeded to see to it, priming the needle. _I told Orochimaru-sama that this blood would most likely improve the boy's chakra control, which is still painful to consider, but I'm not entirely sure that will be the case. Of course there may also be some mental ramifications, but mostly I suspect that Orochimaru-sama just skipped to the part of my report that talked about the boy's puppet abilities._

The deed at hand completed, Kabuto sat down to monitor Naruto's vitals, mostly focusing on the brain patterns and chakra levels. _Meanwhile, assuming this transfusion will be as much of a success as the last one, the boy will have two powers that he's not being told about. Dangerous. At least he won't have to wonder about this one, since I'll be teaching him to manipulate puppets at first. Perhaps it would be beneficial to have him build the wooden puppets he'll be practicing with. Then he'll have something to practice sealing on, too. _Kabuto believed in killing two birds with one jutsu.

When Naruto came-to, he was once again in his bed and, once again, ravenously hungry. He made to get out of bed, but his knees seemed like they had forgotten which way they were supposed to bend. _How long was I out?_ Naruto wondered. It wasn't too long before he was able to totter to the window, tapping on the mirrored glass. Kabuto answered the unceremonious summons, bringing with him a welcome change of clothing and an even more welcome tray of food. Naruto attacked it as only one who has been truly hungry before could understand.

When he was finished, Kabuto held out a hand for the tray, which Naruto handed him. "Get dressed now, and when you're ready, I'll introduce you to someone you may be interested to meet."

Kabuto paused, one foot outside the door, as Naruto, who had not spoken since he had woken up, croaked a question. "Will I be meeting your master?" Kabuto didn't often speak of his elusive master, but never had he mentioned the man's name, Naruto noticed, and whenever the silver-haired boy spoke of the man, it was with a note of reverence in his tone.

"No, Naruto. It is not yet time for you to meet my master. That time won't be for a while. Probably not until the end, in fact. For now, get dressed and when you're ready, you'll meet her, the woman who'll start to teach you a new jutsu." Kabuto left Naruto to scramble into the new clothes, which didn't take more than a minute.

As Kabuto still hadn't returned, Naruto decided to try leaf floating out of sheer boredom. He didn't actually have a leaf with him, but he had the thin strip of paper that he used as a bookmark. It should have been just as easy, but Naruto discovered that he couldn't shift the paper an inch. It lay in his hand, lifeless, useless.

When Kabuto reentered the room, Naruto was panicking slightly. He shook the strip of paper in Kabuto's bemused face the moment the older boy was close enough. Kabuto's first thought was _Oh shit, he's found out about what Konan's DNA allows him to do…_ Then it occurred to him to actually listen to what Naruto was half-screaming.

"What did you do? I can't float anything! You took away my chakra! How am I not dead? Tell me! Tell me!" Kabuto smacked Naruto.

"Get a grip on yourself. Your chakra is intact. We didn't do anything to you."

"Then why won't this work?" Naruto demanded, holding out the strip of paper as though it were damning evidence.

Kabuto signed, feigning regret. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice. With all of the jutsu you're being taught, my master deemed it prudent to prevent jutsu from being performed in this room."  
>"Why?"<p>

"You're progressing at a remarkable rate, it's actually quite alarming. We sealed this room on the off chance that you should, at any point, lose control of your chakra. It rarely ever happens, but you are very valuable to us, and my master wanted to make absolutely certain. Therefore, you can only use your chakra in one of the designated rooms in which you have been training, and not in here." _Although, with all of the ways in which we're planning to edit your DNA, it may just be that these seals won't apply to you anymore, soon. But I'm certainly not going to tell you that._

Naruto accepted the explanation with a mixture of relief and regret. "Anyway," he said, never one to let panic attacks trouble him for long, Kabuto noticed sourly, "Who's this person I'm meeting? What jutsu will she- you said she before- be teaching me?"

"All in good time, Naruto. Don't you want it to be a surprise?"

"I hate surprises. They always seem to end in near-fatal accidents," Naruto said cheerfully and sincerely.

Kabuto, who was in a bad mood, gave up and just walked on in silence, letting Naruto's chatter wash over him, replying in monosyllabic grunts and sidelong glares. Eventually, Naruto fell into a hurt silence, plodding along beside the taller boy.

At last they reached a door, which Kabuto unlocked and ushered Naruto through. The younger boy stopped inside, waiting for Kabuto, but the older boy shook his head. "She has her instructions. I'll keep on eye on you two, but you're going in alone. Good luck. Who knows, you might enjoy it." Kabuto closed the door behind Naruto, who looked around. There room was at least twice the size of his own bedroom. On one wall was a long, low bookshelf, packed to bursting with tomes and scrolls. Nearby was a table loaded blank paper, scrolls, inks of various colors, pens, and one or two wooden practice weapons. There was a familiar-looking tinted, one-way mirror set into the wall opposite the door.

And in the center of the room was a table, at which sat a woman. A thin, pale woman with violet eyes and unusually long red hair. And she was staring at Naruto as though she had seen a ghost.


	3. AN

A/N

Hey this is collosus66 again and I am planning on writing a new story I just need to know witch one. So review it and vote for witch one you would like to see

Naruto/Inukami

Naruto/Soul Eater

Naruto/Black Cat

Naruto/Full Metal Panic

Or add one you would like to see.

Votes will be appreciated.


	4. AN 2

A/N

Hey this is collosus66 and I got a good number of votes for which crossover story I will do first but I will give it one more week and then tell you which got the most votes. Hears an update

Naruto/Inukami 0

Naruto/Soul Eater 4

Naruto/Black Cat 2

Naruto/Full Metal Panic 0

And the suggestions I got:

naruto/final fantasy 7 with narutoxtifa 2

Naruto/fire emblem with narutoxEirika 1

Naruto/Tales of symphonia with NarutoxRainexSheena 1

Naruto/One Piece 1

Naruto/Touhou Project 1

so if you haven't voted and want to see one of these or if you want to suggest something go ahead.

I will try to get to each of the suggestions eventually.

Votes will be appreciated.


	5. Chapter 3

**I DO NOT OWN NARUTO **

**CHAPTER 3**

Naruto slowly opened his eyes. He was in a bright room. It was clean, the colors were bright and there was a big bed in the corner.

"How do you feel?" A voice asked. Naruto turned his head and saw two people sitting on chairs. One was a girl roughly his age with glasses and long red hair, the other one was Kabuto.

. How long had he been out? A few hours, a day, or more? If he only knew.

Another weird thing was that both were surrounded by a weird haze. The girl's haze seemed to be sizzling, while Kabuto's was somewhat strained. He looked at them. "Where am I and what is that stuff around you?"

The two looked at each other with raised brows. Then Kabuto spoke. "I'll answer your first question later,. As for your second question I am at a loss. Do you see something?"

Naruto looked at them as if they had lost their minds, though it was hard to tell with the emotionless eyes of the Rinnegan. "Um, only the weird mist-stuff surrounding you two. How can you not see it, it's right in front of you. A second ago, yours seemed kinda strained while hers," He pointed at the girl "was sizzling or boiling or something like that. Now both of yours are just going in swirls."

The two looked at each other again, another unseen conversation going between them. Then Karin spoke. "Since I'm a sensor, I can tell that there's chakra in the bars from the seals, and that we are surrounded by our chakra. Maybe that's what you're seeing?"

Naruto looked at her. "I could never see chakra, so why now? And who are you? Why am I here?"

Karin blinked. "That's right, I haven't introduced myself yet, have I? My name is Karin, you already know Kabuto. We're working for someone, I doubt you've heard of him, his name is Orochimaru."

Naruto frowned. "No, doesn't ring a bell. Again, why am I here?" He tried to jump up, but he misjudged the length of his legs and fell to the floor.

Karin looked at Kabuto. They'd have to teach him how to walk as well? Then again, the boy had grown with the nutrients he received, and he hadn't moved for over a year. It was no wonder that his brain hadn't adjusted to the longer limbs yet. Hell, it was amazing that his muscles still functioned this well after a year in a tank.

Kabuto sighed. "You shouldn't try to move that much, you've been out for a while and your mind needs to adjust to your body. As for why you're here, it's kinda complicated. For now, all you need to know is that you have to stay here a while, and that Karin and I are going to teach you a few things, reading amongst them."

Karin looked at Kabuto. "You're forgetting medicine and anatomy. He'll learn the basics of that, as he'll need it later."

Kabuto shrugged, bored. "I know, I know. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. First he has to learn to read, and how to form chakra-strings."

Naruto looked at the two people. "So, you plan on teaching me? Why?"

The two shared a look, and a sweatdrop. Kabuto cleared his throat. "Let's just say we're under orders to turn you into a shinobi, and you'll gain the ability of a puppeteer, a rare but very useful talent."

Naruto raised a brow. "Puppets? How is that supposed to help?" He had concluded that in his current situation, there was no way out for him. If he wanted to get out, he'd have to go along with their plans and look for a good chance to escape. He didn't know it, but Sasori's solution had done more than just improve his chakra-control. It had also raised his IQ a good seventy points, and it had already been above average. Naruto now had the mental resources of a genius in the making.

Karin shrugged. "There are special combat-puppets. The size of a human, and usually stuffed with all sorts of nasty surprises. Okay, now that that's cleared, let's start with the chakra-strings first, reading later, and learning how to move without falling over your own feet could probably be helpful as well."

She and Kabuto had already clearly outlined the does and don'ts of Naruto's training. Puppeteering yes, that was why they were here. Medicine and anatomy yes, as they needed him to be able to make human puppets, and he had to understand enough from the scroll to not royally screw up.

Usage of the mouths yes, as it was not only interesting, but it was also the part Naruto was bound to notice in a short amount of time.

Learning how to turn his body into strings and control his bone-structure, maybe later, it gave ideas for dark cold nights.

Teaching him how to transform into sheets of paper no, they didn't need that yet and the seals on the bars hadn't been modified to create a barrier yet. If the boy escaped through the bars, Orochimaru would play bowling with their heads.

The Rinnegan hell no! They really didn't need Naruto taking the place apart, or fling them through the air like leaves in a storm.

And as if on cue, Naruto looked at his hands, probably wondering how he'd make the strings. He gasped in shock. "WHY ARE THERE MOUTHS ON MY HANDS?" He shouted.

Kabuto sighed. "I was hoping you'd take a little longer to notice them. Those mouths are a kekkei genkai, a ability unique to clans. They are something only people with DNA like yours can use. You can't eat food with them, as they're not connected to your stomach, and you can't talk with them, as they have no vocal chords, or connections with the lung."

Naruto stared at his hands. "What do they do?"

Karin coughed. "We're not entirely sure yet. What we do know for certain is that you can animate clay into moving figures that explode with a great force by letting your hands chew it. What we don't know is if you're restricted to clay or can use anything of the nature, like mud."

Naruto looked at his hands. "So one of my parents had these two?"

Kabuto and Karin glanced at each other. "Maybe. We honestly have no idea, but it's possible." It was. They just didn't say how likely it was.

Naruto nodded. "Okay. Since I seem to have little choice either way, let's start."

Karin nodded, waved him closer to the table with the scrolls, and they started.

The next weeks passed quickly for Kabuto and Karin. Naruto was a amazing student if you could answer his questions. He only needed something explained once to memorize it, and his imagination was almost scary. Not only could he come up with ingenious and crazy plans, but he could picture things to a mind-baffling degree, as he only needed to look at the pieces for a minute to put a thousand-piece puzzle together, without making a single mistake or a moment's hesitation. Teaching Naruto kanji had also been much easier than Karin had feared, and from the way they were going through the scrolls, he'd probably knew enough to become a mediocre doctor in a few weeks. Forming chakra-strings had taken a week, but now the boy could instantly summon them.

They had also found time to test out Deidara's bloodline. It turned out that Naruto could use any type of earth in a at least semi-liquid state as explosives, even wet sand worked. But it couldn't be dry dirt, and there was some sort of order for the effectiveness of the explosives. Deidara's clay worked best, seeing that it was of a high quality. Clay in general seemed to be the most effective material for the bombs, while mud and wet dirt were not as good.

Orochimaru had been patient, understanding that rushing the puppeteering without Naruto being able to understand what he was supposed to do would be a waste of time and effort. Also, the room where Naruto would train puppetry had to be prepared, and the corpses of mid-class shinobi that had been gathered for human-puppets had been sealed into scrolls, then organized according to their elemental-affinity. They couldn't gather corpses of high ranking, as the villages might have thrown a fit if high-class shinobi vanished.

Now it was time to teach Naruto puppeteering, before he would receive Itachi's sample. Who knew, the Sharingan might actually make it easier for the boy. They had prepared a training-room for Naruto, and already used the trusted narcotics to knock him out. Now all they had to do was wait.

Naruto woke up with a small headache. He looked around to find himself in a new room. He was laying in a new pile of hay, but beside that, the room was different. It seemed colder, and instead of a table where Kabuto and Karin were waiting for him, he saw a large workbench filled with parts of puppets and other materials. On the other side, there seemed to be a table for operations including scalpels and other medical instruments. There were a few medical-scrolls and one that said human-puppetry. The opposite wall was another set of bars, but there was an opening. Not big enough to slip through, but his arms would fit through. Behind the bars, there was a man-sized puppet laying on the floor, while to the far wall Naruto could see a table with food and a jug on a stone basin filled with water, everything far beyond his reach. He immediately understood that if he wanted to eat and drink, he had to make the puppet get it for him.

He immediately extended chakra-strings to the puppet, only to see them bounce off an invisible barrier inside the opening. "What the hell?" he muttered. Had he been wrong? No, it made sense. Perhaps the barrier had been made to prevent Naruto from cheating, like assembling a long straw for water or something like that. He approached the opening and reached for it. Nothing happened, so Naruto stuck his arms in the opening and tried again. This time, the strings connected to the puppet without a problem.

The problem came afterwords, when Naruto suddenly realized that he didn't know how to control the puppet! But there was only one way he'd get it, and that was trial and error. Naruto already felt that his throat was dry. He head probably been unconscious for hours before he woke up here. He needed water. He moved each finger to see what it did, then he tried different combinations. The puppet twitched like mad, but there was no control whatsoever. This would take a while.

Kabuto and Karin looked into one of Orochimaru's observation-monitors. It had almost been two days, but Naruto had succeeded in moving the puppet to supply himself with food and water. And to their satisfaction, after he had eaten and drunk, Naruto continued to tinker with the puppet. They would inject Itachi's sample into him soon, and the better the boy was with the puppets, the better he'd get in the future. Right now, the puppet was almost as agile as a normal civilian, just a little stiff. They'd also need the downtime to redecorate the training chamber for puppeteering. They had developed a clever schedule that would turn Naruto into a puppeteer that even Sasori would respect. Right now they were working with him on multiple levels. The room where they taught him to read and the room where he worked with puppets were connected through a tunnel, so that Naruto could work on reading with them, and on puppets in the other room. Soon Naruto would build his first human-puppet.

Naruto's next awakening was less pleasant than the former ones. He had an itch in his eyes, and his vision seemed to have changed again. He could still see the weird haze around himself, but now he also saw things much clearer than before, especially movement. Unknown to him, three tomoe were around his pupil, and a few shadows seemed to be in some rings. He saw that he was in the puppet-room again, but this time, there was a note. He opened it.

You will build your own puppet this time. The materials are on the workbench, together with instructions. The difficulty of your task has been upped. You will also repair any damages to the puppet.

That was it. No introduction, no signature, just these instructions. But Naruto knew that he had little choice, and turned to the workbench. The instructions were clear and easy to read, but it was still a exhausting and strenuous job, and Naruto often scraped his skin, cut himself, pulled splinters out of his skin and squashed a finger. And the wood he was working on already had the basic shape of a puppet, only requiring few modifications.

When Naruto finally succeeded, he decided to test the puppet in here before sending it into a situation where it might get destroyed. He was slowly getting the hang of it, and after a few hours, he could move it fluently, so that without the wooden clacking, a onlooker would have sworn that it was not a puppet, but a good genin that was moving around. Naruto had also noticed that he could get the puppets to float, and tried to improve on that, although it could still use a lot of work. But by now, he was hungry and with working and training, he had sweat out precious liquid.

The bars now had another opening through which Naruto could push the puppet, but this one seemed to be the opposite of the one he stuck his hands trough. When he touched the empty space, the barrier had come to life and burned his fingertips. It had healed after a few seconds, but it still hurt. Naruto learned from it and pushed the puppet as far as it went without risking contact with the invisible barrier, then he stuck his hands through the the upper opening and used chakra-strings to pull the puppet completely to the other side before making it stand up.

Now he looked at the room and noticed that it was now much larger. Also, there seemed to be a number of dark corners out of which traps could shoot. Naruto carefully moved the puppet towards the desperately needed water, waiting for a ambush, but it seemed that whoever was controlling the traps was willing to give him one free shot to get at least some of the needed nourishment before they got serious. Naruto made the puppet grab water and a slice of bread before making it go back. Again it got to him without a scratch and handed him water and food. But when Naruto sent the puppet for more, the traps sprang into action.

A guillotine-like blade dropped from the ceiling and Naruto only barely managed to get the puppet back in time to save it being chopped in half. As soon as he tried to use the opportunity that the blade was down, spikes shot out of the floor, grazing the puppet.

Naruto's brow twitched. A single thought was going through his head. 'After all the blood, sweat and tears I put in that puppet, you are so not going to just TRASH IT!'

His hand's motions became furious as the puppet started to dance around the numerous traps that sprung. In his furious focus he didn't even consciously notice when he took one chakra-string off his puppet and glued it to a bladed boomerang that was headed for the puppet to make it veer off course with a twitch.

Kabuto and Karin on the other hand didn't miss it. Karin looked at Kabuto. "Should we start with multiple puppets?"

Kabuto frowned. He would have liked to get the entire puppeteering-thing over with quickly, since Orochimaru had finally agreed to let Naruto train his other bloodlines once that was mastered, but he had also made it clear that he felt no need to go deeply into normal puppeteering, as human-puppets were all he was really interested in. "No. Orochimaru-sama has little interest in normal puppetry, so we'll allow him to improve on using a puppet, and since he started writing down ideas for stuff to hide in puppets, we'll let him improve on that was well. Then we'll have him create human-puppets, learn to use them and their affinities. Once that's done, he'll learn how to control more than one of them at the same time. Two at first, with identical traps, then with individual traps that will force Naruto to split his attention. Once that's done, we'll increase the number of puppets until he can control ten at the same time. Then, as Orochimaru-sama instructed, he'll learn how to move while controlling his puppets."

Karin looked. "Let me guess. He'll learn the hard way?"

Kabuto shrugged. "Unless you have a better idea."

Karin sighed. "No, not really."

Naruto looked around. He was in the room for puppeteering, but things had changed. The connection to the other room was blocked, and his puppet was missing. There were materials for a puppet, but something was off. The operating-table seemed to be polished, the medical instruments more numerous and a number of of other devices of unknown function standing around it. On the workbench, there was a small stack of scrolls, and another note. He opened it.

Again, you have what you need. To understand what you're supposed to do, read the scroll labeled 'Human-puppets.' The traps have been deactivated while you get used to the new puppet. Also, you have one gallon of water, a small loaf of bread and three fruits as provisions for the time during the making of the puppet.

Naruto frowned. What the hell was this supposed to mean? He knew about sealed objects, Kabuto had told and even showed him, but what could be in those scrolls that was different from what had been on the workbench beforehand?

He decided to go for the scroll with the instructions first. He grabbed it, opened it and began to read.

His eyes wandered down the lines, his face growing paler the further he read. After ten minutes, he was pale as a ghost, but he had read the entire scroll. He grabbed one of the scrolls on the workbench, unrolled it on the operating-table and unsealed what it held. He was not surprised to see a human body laying on the table before him, although he was shocked to see that the body looked to have been barely sixteen. Dark skin and long black hair was spread around his head like a black halo. Naruto resealed the corpse, tears in his eyes. All the strange devices suddenly gained function for Naruto.

That one drained the body of blood and other liquids. That one made skinning the body easier. That thing was a special bone-saw for the skull. The scalpels were so that he could remove the innards and replace it with the materials for a puppet. Everything made perfect sense in a very sick way, even why he learned reading with medical texts. Thanks to the scroll and his lessons, he knew exactly what to do to make a human-puppet. The only thing he was lacking was practice, which was probably the reason there were so many scrolls. In case he didn't get it right, he would have more to work on.

Naruto slumped together next to the operating-table, leaning against the wall for support while he buried his face in his hands. What was he supposed to do now? They wanted him to cut up this boy, who he had never seen before, to gore him, to desecrate the corpse by skinning it, bleeding it dry and removing what had given this human life, and make him a tool. Everything inside of Naruto refused to do it, but he knew that he would eventually have no choice if he wanted to live. Still, right now, Naruto just didn't have the strength.

"How's he doing?" Kabuto asked without looking up from his book. He was studying some plans for the near future.

Karin looked up from her medical texts to glance at the screen. "Still no change. He's just sitting next to the table, staring into blank space. He should get started soon, he ran out of provisions a day ago."

Naruto had been in there for almost four days now. On occasions, he had stood up, ate, looked at the instructions for making a human-puppet, taken some instruments into his hands or stared at the scrolls with the bodies. But he had not done anything. Yet.

But they knew it wouldn't be long until the boy caved into thirst. The fact that water flowed into the chalice making soft noise that would be maddening in the silence of the chamber was wearing the thirsty boy down quickly.

And indeed, Karin saw that Naruto had grabbed a scroll and placed the corpse on the operating-table. He checked the instructions again, before moving to attach the dehydrator to the body. Then he grabbed a scalping-knife and some other gimmicks for removing skin they had supplied him with.

Naruto gulped. He didn't want to do it, but the thirst was killing him. And the corpse wouldn't care what happened with it, since Naruto doubted whoever was pulling the strings in the background would just bury them if he refused to do it and died. That was the main reason he moved to turn the corpse into a puppet, he simply didn't want to die.

It was the same boy he had unsealed before. When he touched the dead boy's head, he blinked in shock. He had just flashed through a number of images, gaining knowledge about this poor soul. This boy, his name was Kira, he was, or had been, a low-chunin of Kumo. His dream had been to become the strongest and best Raiton-user in the world. He knew a few Raiton and chakra-control-exercises, but besides that, Naruto didn't get much else. Only that the boy had died from a senbon, probably poisoned, to the neck, dying alone without even getting close to fulfilling his dream. 'What the hell was that?' He mentally asked himself.

Now that Naruto knew something about who he was going to gut it was much harder to do this, but after a moment's hesitation, Naruto gulped and started peeling off the skin. He felt sick and knew that a part of him had just died.

Kabuto whistled, impressed with the boy. He had managed to keep his stomach's content, albeit barely, and was making pretty good progress. Of course Kabuto couldn't see all the details of what was happening, but what he saw made him believe that Naruto seemed determined to get it right on his first try. Probably for some sense of duty to ensure the boy didn't die in vain or something, but if it motivated Naruto, who was he to complain?

After another hour, Naruto was done. The first human-puppet the boy had ever made was laying before him. In a fit of inspiration, Naruto had done some things that weren't written in the scroll, just to see if it worked. He extended the strings and Kira moved. It was a bit different than a normal puppet, but Naruto could move him and would probably quickly learn to master using him. He gently pushed it through the lower opening and made it get him food and water. Then the puppet returned to him, and Naruto fell asleep, dead tired.

The further training had gone extremely well, Naruto mastering making the puppet use elemental and non-elemental jutsu quicker than Kabuto would have dreamed.

Of course he didn't know that was mainly due to the fact that Naruto had seen how to create and use elemental-chakra and jutsu, although he never showed any jutsu, since he knew he was being watched.

They had given him orders to make more puppets, until he had ten, two of each element. His second Lightning-puppet was a woman who could have been Kira's sister, although they weren't related. Her body had begun to change, puberty finally taking hold on her when her life had ended, giving her a curvier body with B-C-cup breasts. Naruto had been embarrassed to look at her naked body, but it was not like she could mind. The girl, whose name happened to be Akira, had been stronger than Kira, though not by much.

His Earth-puppets were both male. One was a redhead in his late thirties named Heiji while the other one, Domon, looked to be at least eighty, with gray hair and a long beard. The old one was actually a former hunter-nin from Iwa that had retired and left the village, so he was particularly strong.

His Fire-puppets, a man and a woman, both in their late twenties, were from an unknown village that was equal to the Uchiha when it came to Katon and known for the green hair of its inhabitants. Since they were both nuke-nin, there was little risk that someone would look for Kaira and Homura.

Kazemaru and Fuuka, his Wind-puppets, had been twins, and the only way to tell them apart if you didn't see their figures would be that the brown hair on Fuuka's head was longer than Kazemaru's.

His first water-puppet, a roughly twenty-five year old woman with long blue hair, was nothing special, a ordinary chunin from Kiri, although she was as strong as a low-ranking jonin. Her name had been Suiumi. But the second one was out of the ordinary. It was the first bloodline-puppet Naruto had ever made. It was also one of the hardest things he had ever done, since the boy was even younger than him, only seven.

Suiyoukito had been born with the Futton-kekkei genkai, also known as Boil-release. As a result, he had been born by parents who had fled from the bloodline-purges and went into hiding. Eventually, the father and his innocent, bloodlineless wife had been found and beaten to death, giving their last gesture of love by not saying a word of Suiyoukito's hiding-place. A pale man that had called himself Orochimaru had approached the boy, asking him to join, but Suiyouki had refused. The man, obviously angered, had poisoned him and tried to force him to join. Suiyouki had refused to the end and died of the poisoning.

For the first time, Naruto saw who was holding him captive. This pale man with the creepy laugh and very short patience. He had never believed that he was just being trained for charity's sake, but now he started to worry what these people had planned for him. He was also starting to doubt that his shifts in vision and other irregularities he had noticed were of a natural cause. But for now, he could only play along.

And play along he did. He had managed to retain Suiyoukito's kekkei genkai, and had been forced to learn how to operate multiple puppets at the same time. At first, he had to control two puppets, one with each hand. The traps had been identical in the beginning, but had changed quickly, forcing Naruto to split his attention on multiple things. Then he had been ordered to control the puppet with less strings, and with time, he had been forced to operate ten puppets independent from each other, and all at the same time. It had taken a week until he had somewhat mastered that, and then they increased the difficulty again. Now he not only had to control ten puppets, which was no longer possible through the wall, leading to him standing in a chakra-construct hanging from the ceiling, but he also had to make sure that he stayed okay. Spikes and rocks shot out of the ceiling at random intervals, weapons shot at his puppets were actually aimed at him, pointy objects targeted him from his blind-spots... it was hell.

The short breaks were better, Karin gave him a scroll in which he could seal all ten puppets, while Kabuto had tattooed a number of blank seals on his arms and chest, saying he would probably soon need them.

And indeed, not even a week later, there was another set with instructions. These simply stated that sealed inside of three scrolls were corpses he was supposed to turn into puppets, and that he should make them his masterpieces.

Naruto noticed that the materials he was given were of a very high quality, and decided to see who was worth all the effort. He unsealed the first scroll, revealing an unknown corpse of a man wearing a gas-mask of sorts. Naruto touched the man's forehead, something that had become a ritual of sorts, and nearly screamed in surprise as the images made their way into Naruto' head.

He received a flood of information. He saw a country, hidden beneath a near-permanent rain. He saw strategies, jutsu, and lizard-like creatures that were called by a few handsigns and a small offering in blood. He saw three people, one of them a younger Orochimaru, fighting him and getting beaten badly. He saw a man with is right eye bandaged, and how they shook hands. The man was wearing a Konoha-insigna, and another one Naruto had noticed on some of the masks of people tailing him. Then there were images of looking down on a small group, but three people seemed in focus. One of them, a woman named Konan, was captured, and if one of the two boys didn't die, the girl would. The spiky-headed one, Yahiku jumped at his friend Nagato and was killed, just as the he had planned. Then the other one tried to attack, but explosive-tags rose from the ground, stuck to his legs and detonated. Those legs would be useless. Just as the troops were about to finish the boy off, something strange happened. A snake-like chakra-construct with a dragon's head shot out and killed the troops. The bandaged man and the man with the gas-mask retreated, and the last image received from that scene were the boy's eyes. They were of a metallic gray, and had many ripples. A few unimportant scenes flashed by, then he saw the boy that had been killed, together with five others. All had those rippled eyes, and they fought as one. Each one had special abilities, and eventually they overwhelmed the man. The woman that had once been a prisoner watched from above, with angel-wings made of what looked like paper. The girl seemed to be made of paper. Then there was a black skewer, a sharp pain, then nothing. Only one sentence still echoed.

"Hanzo, you have suffered the fate of all mortals. Pein, the god of Ame has judged you and found you unworthy of redemption. Take this pain to your next life, so that you may grow from it."

Naruto looked at the body. This man had been a amazing shinobi, and he had had some pretty big enemies as well. He wondered how Orochimaru had gotten the body, as the man, Hanzo, was obviously stronger than him. Then again, he wouldn't get an answer, but he would go hungry or be punished. Punishment was a system that had recently been added. Essentially, when he tried to break out, or just destroy stuff so that he couldn't do it, he was hit by lightning, which usually left him on the floor, twitching and in agony for ten minutes before he managed to get up, or other nasty ways of inflicting pain on him. So Naruto turned Hanzo into a puppet, then discreetly using the puppet to unseal a scroll that had been hidden in the man's skin, only to seal it into one of the seals Kabuto had put on him. The Hanzo-puppet was also sealed away in his body, and Naruto turned to the second scroll and unsealed it.

He jumped back, tripped and landed on his back when he saw who was laying on the table. Either the Shodaime had a lookalike, or he was laying on Naruto's table. Naruto was hyperventilating. Why the hell was the Shodaime laying on the table? Naruto resealed him and grabbed the last scroll, just to see if his suspicion was correct. It was. In front of him laid the Nidaime. Naruto resealed him and collapsed sobbing. Making human-puppets out of strangers had torn him apart, and now they wanted him to desecrate two of the people he had admired. Why him? Why did they do this to him? Hadn't he suffered enough already?

He grabbed a clean scalpel and played around with it, then cutting his wrist. To his shock, instead of blood, he saw brownish gray flesh, that suddenly grew black strings and mended his skin together. As soon as the skin was reconnected, a section of Naruto's arm turned into a sheet of paper, covered the stitch and returned to normal skin. Not a trace of the cut had remained, and Naruto was sure that he had seen the brown flesh mend together by itself. He stared at his arm, then at the still-clean scalpel. That was when he noticed another irregularity.

He was holding the small blade so that its wide side was facing him, and he saw his reflection. The face was still the same, although a bit thinner with slightly colder features. But what shocked him were his eyes. They were rippled, just like Nagato's and later Yahiko's. Did that mean they were related? His skin had turned to paper, just like that woman's, so perhaps those people were his parents? But then, why did he have mouths on his hands, as they were in Ame, while the people who had mouths like him lived in Iwa, according to Kabuto. Well, the nations were bordering on each other, so it wasn't impossible for a crossbreed to exist, but none of the people he saw had anything unusual on his hands. So they weren't his parents. Then Naruto noticed that his eyes were different from Nagato's. There were three tomoe around his pupil, something that neither Nagato nor Yahiko, if it really was him, had possessed. It reminded him of what the people in that walled section of Konoha had, when their eyes turned red.

He knew because he had once landed there by accident, and was brutally beaten, then left to die while anyone who passed him would give him another kick. He probably would have died there, if not for one woman and her two children, a boy and a girl, who had smuggled him out of the compound. He had never learned his saviors' names.

What was going on? Naruto's mind finally provided him the answer. He was an experiment. He had been one before, when a group of people had kidnapped him and operated on him, giving him shots and forcing him to eat things that were clearly not good for him, so he was no stranger to the feeling of being experimented on. The gray flesh, the mouths, the eyes, the strings and the paper, none of that was his. It was something they had done to him. And now that Naruto realized it, he suddenly ghost-pain of maddening intensity. He was physically remembering what his body had went through, and it was hell.

They had probably given him something from a genius in puppetry as well, but Naruto could still call it his achievement, since those skills were earned, not inherited. Everything he had believed, all his hopes of having a family somewhere, it was all crushed. And as pathetic as it was, he couldn't even end his misery. He slowly rose, gave a short prayer to the Hokage for what he was about to do. If he wanted to talk to Kabuto and Karin, he had to finish the given task.

Chapter 3 is complete. It took a while, but it's done. Not that much to say, but the workload for school is steadily increasing, which leaves me grateful that I still have any time to write.

Not much I have to say right now, I made Naruto learn quickly in order to not drag the parts that will make one loose interest if stretched too long. Also, Sasori's DNA had to have some effects, which turned out to be increased mental capabilities, increased dexterity and a great talent for puppeteering. He will receive the last samples next chapter, and by then I'll have decided if and how he makes his escape. And Naruto will not receive any elemental-kekkei genkai, Orochimaru thinks it'll be more efficient to just allow Naruto to turn them into puppets.

One thing I forgot to mention, while I have not decided on any pairings, I don't do yaoi. Ever. Issue closed. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against homosexuality, but it's just not my cup of tea.

Oh yeah, and what do you think of the puppets?

I usually don't do this stuff, but I'll go into the Naruto-canon story just this once. WHAT THE FUCK? Danzo's entire arm is covered in Sharingans? I know they're useful, but that's just too much! And while I admit that would have been the last thing I suspected the arm to be, I already guessed that there was something off about Shisui's Sharingan, or to be more precise, its location on Danzo's head. It just seemed a little too high, and the placement of the eye-socket would have to be more to the side of the head than normal for humans to be able to have iris and pupil in the middle of the eye, not in the corner where is should be. I thought that was an optical illusion, my imagination or a mistake in the picture, but now I'm starting to wonder if those bandages really** only hide one eye.**


	6. end

A/N 3

Sorry guys but I needed to quit one of the fanfics and this one is it I am dealing with a lot of stuff right now and I need to stop this one. I am still going to write king of the storm and my other projects just not this one.


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